Sebastián Piñera, a former president of Chile who helped give a boost to the country’s younger democracy after turning into its first conservative chief since an army dictatorship, died in a helicopter crash in Chile on Tuesday, the federal government stated. He was once 74.
The helicopter, sporting 4 folks, crashed into Lake Ranco in the Los Ríos area in southern Chile about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, in a while after setting out, the federal government stated. Three folks survived and swam to shore, and the Chilean Navy recovered Mr. Piñera’s frame. It is unclear who was once piloting the plane, however Mr. Piñera was once recognized to fly his personal helicopter.
Mr. Piñera was once a billionaire businessman and investor who served two phrases as Chile’s president, from 2010 to 2014 and from 2018 to 2022.
A conservative, Mr. Piñera ushered in pro-business insurance policies that helped spice up enlargement and make the country of 19 million, in his phrases, “a true oasis” in Latin America.
But he additionally confronted huge protests from citizens who stated his govt dismissed the deficient — Chile is one of the sector’s maximum economically unequal international locations — and he left place of job each occasions with low approval rankings.
“President Piñera contributed, from his perspective, to build broad agreements for the good of the nation,” President Gabriel Boric of Chile stated in a televised cope with on Tuesday. “He was a democrat from the very beginning and genuinely sought what he believed was best for the country.” Mr. Boric introduced 3 days of nationwide mourning.
Perhaps Mr. Piñera’s most vital legacy was once serving to Chile’s conservative motion win energy for the primary time because the finish of Chile’s brutal army dictatorship beneath Gen. Augusto Pinochet in 1990.
After twenty years of leftist rule following the dictatorship, his first election, in 2010, confirmed that Chile’s democracy was once sturdy and wholesome, stated Robert Funk, a political science professor on the University of Chile.
“He did that basically on his own,” Mr. Funk stated. “He pushed the parties on the right to participate and accept the rules of the game at a time when they were not so convinced.”
Mr. Piñera is survived through his spouse, Cecilia Morel, whom he married in 1973, and their 4 youngsters.
Mr. Piñera made his first fortune through introducing credit playing cards to Chile throughout the dictatorship in the early Nineteen Eighties. He later used the ones budget to take a position in an unlimited array of corporations, together with in actual property, banking, power and mining. He owned a tv broadcaster in conjunction with main stocks of an airline and a pro football membership.
He then used his wealth to go into politics, first as a senator and later as president.
Mr. Piñera recommended Chile thru some of its maximum tricky moments in fresh years. Weeks after he was once elected in 2010, an impressive earthquake and tsunami killed 525 folks in the rustic and displaced an extra 1.5 million.
Later that yr, Mr. Piñera staked his presidency on rescuing 33 miners who have been trapped just about a half-mile underground. His govt’s elaborate plan — drilling a slim hollow and reducing a personalized pill — was once a hit, and Mr. Piñera embraced and celebrated with the lads as they have been lifted to freedom one at a time after 68 days underground.
In his 2nd time period, Mr. Piñera oversaw his govt’s extensively praised reaction to the pandemic, as he secured a big inventory of vaccines from China and rolled out an effective vaccination program.
His govt additionally confronted mass protests in 2019 that started over a small hike in subway fares however ultimately ballooned into vast court cases over inequality.
Mr. Piñera used the army to quell the protests, and later clashes between the police and demonstrators left greater than 30 civilians useless and 460 others blinded or with critical eye trauma from rubber bullets.
Eventually, Mr. Piñera acquiesced to calls for for a countrywide referendum on whether or not to scrap Chile’s Constitution, which had roots in the dictatorship. Chileans voted overwhelmingly to draft a brand new constitution, however ultimate December, after 4 years and two failed constitutional plebiscites, the country selected to reside, for now, with the present textual content.
Mr. Piñera was once an effective and professional supervisor, who in basic oversaw a vast development in Chileans’ high quality of lifestyles, Mr. Funk stated, however he additionally incessantly failed as a political candidate and communicator, in particular in figuring out poorer folks’s issues.
“He governed through an Excel spreadsheet,” Mr. Funk stated. “He said we’re doing well on this box, on this box. But his failure was that he didn’t have a sense of the politics beneath that, of people’s frustration, of how his governments would really rub people the wrong way.”
Mr. Piñera additionally confronted scandals. He went into hiding briefly in the Nineteen Eighties when the government sought to arrest him for fraudulent lending when he was once a financial institution government. He was once by no means convicted.
When he transitioned from enterprise to politics, he was once criticized for conflicts of passion between his investments and his positions in public place of job.
As president, he was once ultimately compelled to have his belongings controlled through blind trusts. Yet, it was once later printed that he had moved a lot of his wealth to tax havens in Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands, stated Sergio Jara, the writer of a e-book on Chilean enterprise leaders, together with Mr. Piñera.
“He was a voracious and diverse investor, owning minority shares in over 100 companies,” Mr. Jara stated. “This allowed him to build one of Chile’s greatest fortunes.”
John Bartlett contributed reporting from Valdivia, Chile.